


All The Years Of Never

by Leyenn



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-18
Updated: 2009-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-03 06:23:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You think some things aren't meant to be, but at the end you can never be sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Years Of Never

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Babylon 5 Ficathon 2004. Spoilerish for _War Without End, Points of Departure, Sleeping In Light_.

**   
_2250._   
**

The bulk of Jupiter swamped his window, daunting in its vastness behind him. She snapped off a smart salute.

"Lieutenant Susan Ivanova, reporting for duty, sir."

He held out his hand, wanting her to be at ease. He'd only know later how hard that could be, or how easy.

"Good to meet you, Lieutenant." She looked young for the rank: her grip was stronger than he expected. "Welcome to Io."

"Thank you, sir."

"'Commander' will do fine. We're a small station."

Her eyes were dark, flinty, and he thought she might have been amused. "Yes sir. Commander."

He grinned. "I'll walk you down to the housing deck. That is, if you don't mind the company."

"I'm sure I can find my way around, Commander." She was quick; he saw in her eyes the spark of a grin almost to match his own. He let himself smile.

"I'm sure you can, Lieutenant, but since I'm heading that way..."

"Then far be it from me to stop you, sir." She hoisted her bag onto one shoulder; he hooked one hand under the strap and took it from her instead.

"Allow me."

She looked up at him. "You're practically a newlywed, or isn't that true?"

"It's true." Her pack was lighter than he'd thought, and she walked quickly. "You're very blunt, Lieutenant."

"I am Russian, Commander."

"It's going to be a challenge getting to know you, isn't it?"

Now she was amused. "Most likely."

He smiled widely, a quirk of amusement at the back of her head. "You don't sound very sure."

"Most people don't get that far." She looked back at him over her shoulder. "Commander."

  


*

  


** _2254._ **   


"You're sure you're all right."

"I'm fine." He stumbled a little to prove it. "Great, for a guy who's been seventeen years older for a few hours today."

She thumped him on the shoulder. "Sit down for a minute if you need to. It's not like we haven't got the time." A smile tossed his way made him force a grin in return, if only a shadow of one, and lean himself up to a rail that felt far too familiar.

"You think he'll be all right, nine hundred years in the past?"

Her sigh was deep enough to rattle through him. She swung up onto the railing alongside, close enough to brush a sleeve against his. He tried not to look down over a Zocalo not their own, hovering impatient at her back. "I don't know. Hell, I don't even know if he's all right now. You ask me, he's closing in on insane." She glanced at him. "Would you be?"

He waved his hand. His head still spun. "I'm not sure I can answer that. At least, not right now."

"Bad time to ask?"

"Very funny." His gaze touched hers and his voice lowered. "Sinclair means a lot to you, doesn't he?"

She looked away. "No more than you do," in a voice that made it an obvious lie, and then after a moment, "Yes, all right, he means a lot to me. I care about him. He did a lot for me."

"Susan..."

"Everyone leaves." She sounded distant to his ears, so much that he leaned in closer and forgot to wonder how it would look when someone - Delenn - came back for them.

"Not everyone." His hand was somehow on her arm, a comfort where he knew she needed it but no more. "You know, while we've got a minute, there's something I've been thinking about mentioning."

Pain and almost amusement met in her face. "Oh god, not you too."

He looked at her with a small smile anyway. "Marcus has a crush on you."

Then she ducked her head, and did smile. Didn't pull away from his hand, but her fingers moved and clenched muscles under the cloth. "God, John, could you be any more childish?"

"He's a good guy, Susan. You should give him a chance."

"He'll get over it. Or grow out of it, one or the other." She looked at him. "They always do."

He looked at her, and it was not quite and more than a smile. "Not always, remember."

"'Crush' was never the word for that," she said, softly in the too-quiet. "We need to get going."

  


*

  


_ **2257.** _   


The restaurant was a pokey little hole in the wall along a side street, small enough that he never knew how he'd found it until he was walking in an hour early. Later he'd reason how few restaurants there ever were on Proxima, and try not to wonder about spotting her sitting there at the bar, wearing her hair down over civilian clothes and a lieutenant commander's bars.

"Long time no talk," he said over her shoulder, not grinning at all when she jumped in turning around, or when her smile met his face and reminded him, for a moment.

"Commander?"

"Good to see me?" He slipped into the next seat, one hand close to hers. "Catching up to me as well, huh?"

"Io got a little stale after you left," she admitted, and offered him the bottle of wine. "How've you been - hell, what are you doing here, of all places? I heard you'd got a ship now."

"The _Agamemnon_." He didn't keep the pride from his voice because he knew, she would understand feeling it. Understand feeling a lot of things he'd not known, the last time. "As to the other thing;" he glanced towards the door; it stayed closed, still, until he turned back. "I'm waiting for my sister."

"You have family here?" She blinked, shrugged her shoulders out of her jacket. "I didn't know that."

"They moved here a couple of years back. She has a young family, the job market's booming right now, it's a good place to settle." Her shirt was soft linen, native-looking and exotic. Anna had always liked silk. He poured the wine again. "I get to pass by fairly frequently."

"Speaking of family, I..." She stopped, for just a second, to afford him a quiet look. "I heard about the _Icarus_."

He threw the thick wine to the back of his throat and swallowed hard, telling himself it was only the alcohol making his eyes sting. "Yeah."

"John, I'm so sorry."

"Yeah."

"But that never makes it better, so," she poured the rest of her wine into his. "Not that this helps either."

"No." He drank it down. "Nothing does."

She didn't answer that.

"Liz is late," and if Susan knew that was as blatant a lie as it was, she didn't say. "We've finished this." Holding the bottle.

"Yeah."

Her eyes were heavy in the harsh lighting when they stepped outside; ten minutes onto the main street, he turned his head and kissed her while Liz walked past. Susan's hair was too dark, too long to be Anna's, and too thick when it tangled around his fingers for him to recognise: he took her back to the hotel room in a silence that felt companionable enough, until he realised how it was she walking in front of him and not the other way around.

She let him open the door, lead her into the bedroom, drop her jacket from her shoulders again, and somewhere between his fingers untangling her hair and her hands under the leather of his jacket he stopped pretending not to want her, stopped trying to feel how he should have felt instead.

Susan in control kissed better, sweeter, harder than Susan standing on a street corner. Susan pressed the heat and curves of her body against his, and she growled against him tightly when his tongue traced her neck, her shoulder, when he dropped her to the bed to keep on going. Susan naked was beautiful and dangerous - too dangerous for this, when he was gazing down at her and breathing hard, slick with sweat and his blood pulsing where her touch stroked over his hip.

"Susan," he muttered into her hair, and her fingers clenched at his skin.

"Why don't you just get some sleep." Her hands were warm when they moved; it was comforting how she didn't speak after that, just let him collapse and lay down on the bed beside him, close and hot under the sheets that tickled his skin.

He was crying when he woke up: she was sleeping on his shoulder. When she opened her eyes and smirked his way, he had something to care about that wasn't Liz, or his career, or whoever he should be protecting this week. It meant she was lonely and so was he; her hands were warm, and he didn't always have to know what to do.

  


*

  


_ **2259.** _   


"I am really glad you're here," she said when he sat down at her table. She said it as if they'd been having the discussion for whole minutes before he walked in and found her sitting here at her usual table, long after the others had left.

"Glad to be here," he said after ordering a juice - of what kind he wasn't sure, even once he was drinking it.

"I mean it, John."

"Hell, so do I."

"Yeah, well." She was drinking coffee, her wine glass sitting discarded, but he didn't ask if it was the real stuff. He'd already found the stash she left in his kitchen cabinet, looking all lonely and delicious on its single shelf. "Give it a few weeks and you'll be as mad to get out of the place as the rest of us."

"You love it here." He said it without thinking, since he tended to try that around Susan once in a while. It made for interesting conversation. "It's all perfectly logical, actually, thinking about it. We've always known you were a little insane."

"We've always had this problem with killing my CO being illegal, too," she pointed out, although she didn't bother telling that to the glance she gave him - all stabbing heat and amusement.

"You could settle for buying him a drink."

"Where would be the fun in that?" She couldn't help but point out the obvious. "And he already has one."

"We've been within the same airspace for over twenty-four hours now and you haven't even offered me vodka?"

"Papaya doesn't make a good mixer," she pointed out, as if he should have known it already.

"Is that what this is?"

"You're the fruit expert," and that she did say as if he should know, with a glint in her eye when he gave her that boyish smile that always made her laugh. "It's good-"

He swallowed a mouthful of juice, savoring it, sharp and sweet. "To see me, I know."

"You're something to see." She never managed to keep the respect from her voice, he'd always noticed that. Even when she was saying this, or eyeing him up that way, her smile speaking words he wasn't sure he should hear.

"You've grown up a little, too," he said then, wondering if there hadn't been some vodka in that juice after all.

"It's only been two years." But he could see the way she smiled behind her coffee and didn't let herself blush. "Anyway, this place has a way of doing that to you. It's only a matter of time," then she was reaching up to fuss his hair, and in those seconds he felt too bright and youthful against the depth in her eyes. "You'll go grey within six months, or as bald as a Minbari. And probably as fat as Londo Mollari," although if that was an excuse to run her hand down his uniform and smooth its edges under her palm, he could barely tell.

"At least you'll be around." It was all but a challenge, and now he was sure of something spiked in his drink. He swallowed it down and felt it tingle a little, just at the back of his throat. She grinned at him in the light of the bar, over an empty cup.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world, Captain."

  


*

  


_ **2261.** _   


She was waiting for him when he opened the door.

He poured her a shot of brandy without speaking, not really knowing what to say. She took it without saying a word, not looking his way until he sat and they were just there, drinks in hand, glass clenched hard under skin and wishing it could maybe be something else.

"I hate this stuff, you know," she said. It made him smile, that she could be that simple about all this. That he was here, and alive somehow, and there needed to be nothing more to it than that.

"Susan..." He started but couldn't finish, and she looked at him. And he knew there was no need to frame it in words, because she knew already.

"There's always a catch," she said quietly, and finished her brandy in a slow, tight swallow he almost felt. "Life's a bitch. What can you do?"

"The best we can," he told her, because it was the only cliché that came to mind. "Twenty years is long enough to do that."

"That's a little optimistic of you, isn't it?" Just like Susan to crack a joke, afraid to be serious. Afraid that it might be her cracking apart if she were, right here on his couch. "They still shoot people like us back home, you know."

"People like us." He swallowed his drink and stood up for the vodka instead - twenty years, not a lot of time to waste. "Idealists?"

"Mutineers," she said darkly.

"We're only mutineers if we lose."

"And if we win, we're what. Heroes?" She laughed, and it was rich and quiet and stinging. That laugh was her telling him nothing had changed; the twitch of his fingers on the bottle was him saying, everything had and she didn't understand, until he turned around.

Of course she understood... the life smouldering in him, the prophecies and the way it felt when they all kept trying to spin the world around his axis. She just didn't care.

"You need to stay that way," she told him, softly. "Keep hold of that thought, John."

It burned on its way down, the vodka, and the words on their way up felt drowned by it. "For what?" The glass all but cracked through his fingers. "I went and I did what I had to do, Susan, goddammit, and they couldn't even just let me _die_ like an honorable soldier-"

"That's because you're not." She was behind him when she said it, although he never remembered her rising. "You're something more than that, John. You hold all this together and you know it. You're the hero they need for this."

When he turned then, he could see belief in her eyes, and he didn't think in those moments when the glass rolled to the floor and his hand traced her hair.

"And you have to keep hold of that for me. Because I lost it a long time ago."

He didn't think, once, ever, in those moments, but he remembered later how he'd grabbed her and she hadn't resisted, how he'd tugged her forward and found her hair free under his fingers and buried them in it, finding it thick and warm. And how she hadn't spoken when her hands went to his chest, but it was as if he could hear her, when his mouth had covered hers and her mouth and his tongue and the heat of her against him and it was Susan, smiling into his kiss, fingers burning the back of his neck, teeth biting his lip, until it broke like eggshells - moments of something lost, crushed to pieces in the sudden dead quiet.

"I'm not a hero, Susan." His mouth close to hers, waiting to devour, needing her belief to stop him, now.

Her fingers sliding on his skin were soothing, heated when she shrugged up at him. "Well, as long as you look the part." Then her touch sliding away, and it felt like falling all over again. "You should marry her, John." Just soft enough to hear and not to burn him with the words. "She loves you. You love her."

"I'll miss you," he said, because they both knew. John Sheridan didn't waste time with decisions, didn't have time to waste. "But you won't be alone, you know-"

"Yeah, I will." But she smiled anyway. "It's easier that way. How many guys can come back from the dead, after all?"

He wanted - and he didn't have time - couldn't decide if he didn't have it for this, or didn't have it to waste on this - but he wanted, because _guys_ meant _in my life_ and _people I loved_ and damn it, she'd already lost too much.

"John." Her hand left a hot swathe of skin through his shirt. "I'll be okay. Get married, have a kid." She flickered a smile that ripped him to the core, and he didn't have time. "I'll come visit and play the mysterious Aunt who spoils 'em rotten."

"You'll be good at it." And in that second he wanted Susan and he loved Delenn and he didn't have time. Just didn't have time.

  


*

  


_ **2263.** _   


The walk was the longest he remembered in years. The docking bay loomed around them both, threatening to swallow his focus whole before he could speak.

"So you're heading back out to the Rim?"

"Lot of work to do." She smirked. "Someone's gotta keep the cogs turning while you're up there playing all your Presidential wild cards."

"When else am I gonna get to play them?" He asked it, but he didn't need her answer. He got a laugh just the same.

"You won't be President forever, John." The shuttle lurked over her head as she turned to look him in the eyes. "But it might be too long for you, all the same."

"Stay." His hand covered hers where no one would see, pleading. "You could still have this place, you could come to Minbar-"

She smiled up at him. "I can't." The smile cracked before she turned away. "It hurts too much."

"I'm sorry," he said then, meaning it, being the only one alive to say it. It didn't help.

"Don't be." She squeezed his hand tight, warmly. "You look happy."

"I am. We are."

"Good." She brushed her fingers away, only a tingle of feeling left behind. "Tell Delenn I said hello. And kiss David for me."

He nodded, because he couldn't find the words to say as she headed up the steps. Her footsteps sounded heavy, ringing in the loud quiet. He tried not to notice the dock workers passing behind him, or the way they moved away at seeing his face. Or the way he couldn't tell if it had been the President or the screaming man inside who made them look at him that way.

She stopped at the hatchway, and he couldn't tell which one of them had made it happen. When she turned, he suspected them both.

"Do me a favor?"

His hand found the rail, but he couldn't bring himself closer. "Anything." His fingers clenched on the coolness of metal, longing for the heat of skin again. "You know that."

"Remember what you owe yourself, as well as them." Her smile never touched her eyes, this time. "Us." And then she ducked inside, without looking back.

He stayed standing there until they made him leave, long after the hatch had closed.

  


*

  


_ **2279.** _   


The cheers were too deafening, even for the amount of practice he'd been getting. He ducked off the podium and let Delenn carry on, let her carry the hour.

He saw her in the crowd as he stepped down; smiling, just standing there. And then gone.

She was there again as he passed the rope line, familiar eyes and a familiar smile, dipping in and out of his vision. He smiled and signed another card, the new name still awkward from his fingers.

The cheering still echoed in his ears as he made his way through the reception. Delenn smiled at him through the crowd of people, past his guard and her guard, both of them trying to be discreet, and nodded behind him. He turned, already hoping what he'd see, unable to bear the disappointment of her slipping away again.

She stood right behind him, three feet away, her back turned, hair loose over the dusky grey of a General's uniform.

"Susan?"

He turned her before she noticed who was turning her around, and then she was grinning up at him again just like old times.

"John." Her arms around his neck were tight, pressing her smile to his skin. "Hi."

He broke into a grin. His arms around her waist were there without his noticing, until the heat of her leaning into his hands. "That's all? 'Hi'?"

"What else is there to say?"

He laughed. "At least it wasn't 'Entil'Zha'."

"I'm not that kinky."

He didn't notice himself not letting her go. Just like old times. A little greyer, a little more worn, but all the same until she pulled away.

Then, it really was twenty years ago all over again.

"The limelight's over there," she lifted a glass from a passing tray and pointed. He shook his head.

"They need to get used to... my not being here."

"I know what you mean." She didn't look at him. She didn't have to.

"I still miss you. Sometimes." As if he'd never paused, right there. "You should stop by more often - you're missing the best parts."

"You mean David?" She grinned out into the crowd, raised her wine glass to someone passing he didn't recognise. "The hormones, the temper, the constant disobedience and driving his parents wild... yeah, I remember that kind of fun."

"You're going to grow old and grumpy all alone," he muttered, light-hearted. She smiled.

"I knew that a long time ago."

He pretended not to see the pain, and smiled out into the crowd beside her.

  


*

  


_ **2282.** _   


There are moments in life when time flows backwards, and all that exists is the might have been.

This is one of those moments.

She didn't want to take the office, but it's hers now like everything else - like the fighting pike, tucked into the robes wrapped around her, his fitting better than Delenn's ever might have. Like the family here - indoors behind guards and the guards themselves, they're all hers now.

His desk is huge, old. Parts of it seem to be crystal, but she doesn't look too closely beyond the pages in her hands. Pages of a life, seen from the outside in.

"He meant a lot to you." Delenn glides up to her, without pretence. The first time they've spoken in days. "You loved him."

She tries to swallow back the tears. "He... gave me something, after my brother died."

Delenn doesn't touch her; it's too raw, this room, this life. "Really? What was it?"

The question is simple; and she tries, but she can't say it out loud. Not that. The glass in her hand is elegant and priceless, the Ranger brew inside thick on her tongue.

But Delenn, always Delenn - she understands, if only a little late.

"You loved him, Susan? And he loved you?"

It burns, tears and alcohol all together not half a match for the regret that eats at her in this instant, with it all so simple and guilty and nothing. "Yes. And... I think so, yes."

"But you were never..."

She shakes her head, glad of the shadow of her hair as it falls around her face, a subtle wall. She could not, she thinks - almost in Minbari - she couldn't face this thought without it. "No, we were never. Like that."

Delenn's voice pleads an innocence she thought was long dead, and a friend's compassion that almost makes her bleed inside thinking she might deserve it. "Why, Susan?"

There are moments in life when the might have been is all there is; when nothing is as good as what you see within it, and there are no answers.

"I don't know," and she honestly doesn't, as much as it hurts. "You think some things aren't meant to be, but in the end - you can never be sure."

  


*

  



End file.
